Banned Books Week Celebrating the Freedom to Read!

September 30 – October 6 2012

A Democratic Society and the Issue of Censorship

Banned Books Week Begins

• Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read.

• Launched in 1982 to sudden surge in number of challenges to books in schools, libraries and bookstores.

• More than 1,000 books have been challenged since 1982.

• The United States take the acts of banning or challenging a book as a serious matter, because these are forms of censorship which strike at the very core of our freedom to read.

Censorship.

Deciding to get rid of something that offends you…

for everyone.

Here’s an example.

• When you were in elementary school, you might have read In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak.

• It’s about a little boy named Mickey who wakes up in the middle of the night to a loud noise. He suddenly starts to float up out of his bed and eventually enters a bakers’ kitchen where he has lovely adventures.

The Problem?

• Mickey falls out of his clothes as he enters the kitchen, and thus runs around naked for parts of the story.

• Parents, teachers, and librarians have been so embarrassed and upset by this that they have taken to drawing shorts on Mickey or gluing stickers over his “private area.”

Revealed!

FOR THE RECORD…The author, Maurice Sendak, said he wasn’t trying to be controversial. He just thought that it would be easier for Mickey to be naked when he fell in a bowl of cake batter so he wouldn’t have dirty clothes!

History of Book Censorship

• Secular and religious authorities have censored books for as long as people have been writing them.

• In ancient times, when hand-scribed books existed in only one or a few copies, destroying them (usually by burning) guaranteed no one would ever read them.

• Invention of the printing press by Johann Gutenberg around 1450 made it possible to circulate more copies of books, essentially reducing the power of book burning to disseminate texts.

1450 1550 1650 1750 1850 1950

1470:First popular books printed

and sold in Germany

1490:Germany's first

official censorship

office established when local archbishop

pleaded with town officials

to censor "dangerous

publications".

1490 - 1529:Henry VIII of

England established a

licensing system

requiring printers to submit all

manuscripts to Church of England

authorities for approval.

1529:Henry VIII outlawed all

imported publications.

1535:French king

Francis I issued an edict

prohibiting the printing of

books.

1559:Roman

Catholic Church issued

the first published and most notorious

list of forbidden

books, Index Librorum

Prohibitorum, in response to

spread of Protestantism and scientific

inquiry.

1559 - 1650Censorship followed European settlers to America.

1650:First book burning in America.

1872:New York

Society for the Suppression of Vice founded by pioneer of

American censorship,

Anthony Comstock.

1873:"Comstock

Law" established,

banning mailing of

materials found to be "lewd,

indecent, filthy, or obscene."

1874-1915Anthony

Comstock's reign as special

agent of the U.S. Post Office.

1900’s:Paul Boyer,

author of Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age

to the Computer Age,

claims "Comstock

Law" merely a 'gentleman's agreement'.

1920’s:Nationally publicized

court battles over censored

books began to erode the law.

1933:Frightening

views of Nazi book burnings

in Germany began to create

an anti-censorship

sentiment in the United States.

1933:Comstock Law

broken.

Censorship Timeline

Nazi Germany

STILL? •Small forms of censorship

Most “dangerous” book of 2009

• Tango is based on a real-life story. In a zoo in New York City, a baby penguin egg was abandoned. Rather than let it die, two male penguins “adopted” the egg and took turns sitting on it until it hatched!

• Aww…

Most “dangerous” book of 2011

Author Laurn Myracle wrote a whole series of books starting in 2004 written entirely in instant messages. Banned in numerous places across for “adult situations,” “Flirtation with a teacher” and sexually explicitness.

Challenges to Books

• Challenges occur in every state and in hundreds of communities.

• People challenge books based on political, religious, sexual, or social grounds.

• People target books that explore the latest problems to beloved works of American literature.

Book Challenges 2007 - 2011

United StatesBanning Books

• Old practice of restricting access.

• Forcing control or regulation over First Amendment rights to free speech and free expression.

• Burning books to suppress opinions, questions, and exposure to new thoughts and practices.

• Create a like-mindedness—control content to maintain power (i.e. China and media censorship).

Challenging Books

• Fair practice in a democratic society.

• Invites questions, discussions, learning, exposure of issues and problems, raises awareness and stirs various viewpoints.

• No restriction on First Amendment rights.

• No centralized power or authority.

Who Challenges Books?

Why are Books Challenged?

Books are usually challenged with the best intentions—to protect others, frequently children, from difficult ideas and information.

*It is important to note that books must be taken as a whole and not out of context. Most challenges dispute certain parts of a written work without consideration of the nature of the work as a whole.

However, challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.

Most challenges are unsuccessful, and most books are retained in the

school curriculum and on the library and bookstore shelves.

Reasons for Book Challenges

Tabulating Most Challenged Books

American Library Association (ALA) Office of Intellectual Freedom collects challenge information from newspapers, from reports submitted by individuals, and from those individuals who use the Challenge Database Form.

Challenges are compiled in a database, and the full list is released each year for Banned Books Week.

All challenges made to ALA are kept confidential.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian

Twisted

Joy of Sex

Nickel and Dimed on (Not) Getting by in America

Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl

Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary

Perks of Being a Wallflower

Mein Kempf

First Amendment

“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”

William Brennan

US Supreme Court Justice

First Amendment

Individuals may restrict what they themselves or their children read, but they must not call on governmental or public agencies to prevent others from reading or seeing that material.

Fight Censorship• Visit anti-censorship groups to join the fight!

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) American Library Association National Coalition Against Censorship

Book Censorship Toolkit

• Visit pro-censorship groups to learn about their issues. Parents Against Bad Books in Schools (PABBIS) Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools Facts on Fiction

• READ A BANNED BOOK!

More information?

http://libguides.ccac.edu/bannedbooks

Thank You!

Questions?